Lovely War

by Julie Berry

THERE IT WAS. The barbershop. The King’s Whiskers. James smiled. Hazel Windicott lived right above the King’s Whiskers. Did that make her, perhaps, a nose? The joke was so bad, it made him snicker.

“You’re a brand-new piece of sheet music,” she said slowly, “for a song which, once played, I’d swear I’d always known.”

He watched her long lashes open and shut. This beauty before him would never fade. (It’s one of my most useful little lies.)

James wasn’t going anyplace. He was only leaving Hazel. Leaving her, and leaving her, and leaving her still some more.

He’d never have met her, if it wasn’t for the war. And now the war had torn them apart. “The War giveth, and the War taketh away. Blessed be the name of the War.”

When she realized that she missed him when he didn’t show up as expected, and that when he did appear, she had no idea what to say to a boy as familiar as an old sock, she knew she was in some kind of trouble.

“You’ve got me thinking more,” he said, “about how to pull the feeling out of a melody. Make it something you can sing with your whole life. Not just the body. That’s how you do it, every time.” I could see you there, Apollo. Waving in the window like a nosy neighbor. Go away.

I like to keep a little bit of nervousness simmering. It keeps mortals alert at crucial moments. Sensitive to every detail. It imprints lasting memories. These moments belong to forever.

The waiter situated them in a corner booth in the upper deck, took their order, and left them, knowingly, in peace. I rarely need to intervene with French waitstaff. They’re my people.

Let them start their dreadful wars, let destruction rain down, and let plague sweep through, but I will still be here, doing my work, holding humankind together with love like this.

“I’m less than a pawn.” Colette’s eyes were hollow. All light had left her. “I’m a plaything to a vindictive god.”

Whatever boost sixty captured miles might have brought to German morale was erased by the chocolate in the BEF’s packs. War is morale. War is supply. War is chocolate.

Hazel blinked. “Your mother certainly would not approve.” “I wouldn’t tell her,” said Maggie, as if this were the most obvious solution in the world.

“You’re not chasing after that young chappie who just got on the train, are you?” he said. “That’s a rather impertinent question, don’t you think?” snapped Hazel. “Porter!” The cashier watched her go. “She’s chasing after that chappie,” he told his fellow cashier at the adjacent window. “I’d bet my week’s wages.” “I would too if I were her,” replied the other cashier, a spinster of a certain age. Women, in men’s jobs! The war, of course.

Hazel’s jaw dropped. Her feet refused to take another step. “You’re not serious.” He nodded. “Like the maggot,” he said, “I’m in Dead Ernest.”

“Months in the making?” he cries. “I planned this.” She pats his knee. “Yes, dear.”

He feels shy now, beside his wife. Marriage was simpler, he realizes, when the game plan was “catch her in a net.”